Friday, 7 February 2014

The Violence Half - "The Memory Waltz" - (Nihilistic Recordings) 1988

Now what do you get when you cross NotHalf
with fellow Canadian avant-gardists, Violence and the Sacred? Correct,
The Violence Half. Who made a few collaborations together around 1987/8,
one of which is this rather irritating attempt at deconstructing two
pieces of music. Lots of tape manipulations involved here: speeding up,
slowing down, fingers pressed on to the pinchers, several tapes playing
over each other at different speeds, through the usual effects units ;
you name it, its being done here.......for nearly one fucking hour! A
herky jerky exercise in pretentiousness, but not as annoyingly
pretentious as that NewBlockaders tape “Epater les Bourgeois”,
which was 90 minutes of cassette hiss. I suppose, if it irritates
someone like me it serves a purpose, but basically it outstays its
welcome after about five minutes. Worth downloading if you want
something to play to get rid of unwanted guests, annoy your wife, or
appear ‘intelligent’ to dumb people. An idea that sounds good on paper,
but rather ostentatious on cassette tape.

Cival Disobedience is good:

“Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders…and millions have been killed because of this obedience…Our problem is that people are obedient allover the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves… (and) the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.”